What ‘Losing’ To Climate Change Looks Like

Fuck around and find out

indi.ca
11 min readSep 2, 2023
Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), (Under the well of the Great Wave off Kanagawa) [‘The Great Wave’].

As discussed, we have lost the ‘fight against climate change’ before we started, simply from the way we look at the problem. ‘We’ are not the relevant species and ‘fighting’ is not the right metaphor. All of our ideas of ‘victory’ hinge on further domination of nature which is why we’re ‘losing’ in the first place. Just ask the old gods or the new. Actual winning would require a level of sacrifice we consider disastrous in and of itself. We are a bunch of hairless apes, ruled by corporations, picking a fight with the fucking weather. This is as stupid as it sounds.

Regardless of the theoretical possibility of ‘beating’ climate change (why are we always hitting?), it is (also as discussed) simply too late. The time to stop corporate colonialism was in the 1600s, the time to stop capitalism was in the early 1900s, and the time to address the growing symptoms of collapse was in the 1970s, at best. As you may have noticed we are multiple doubling cycles later, ie, way too late. Exponential growth is a bitch, and it’s a boss bitch now.

The gods may move slow, but when they do move, they move inexorably. We feel like we have control over climate collapse but we don’t. This change has been a long time coming and we just happen to be here when it plays out. It’s like being on the beach…

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indi.ca
indi.ca

Written by indi.ca

Indrajit (Indi) Samarajiva is a Sri Lankan writer. Follow me at www.indi.ca, or just email me at indi@indi.ca.